Central London footfall growth behind other regional cities
Central London footfall has lagged behind the recovery of other regional cities last week.
According to the latest data from Springboard, footfall rose in all types of town centres in the UK last week.
However, while regional cities outside of London saw the largest boost, up 7.1 per cent, Central London growth was only 3.3 per cent.
“In part this is likely to be driven by employees outside of the capital heading back into their offices to a greater degree than in previous weeks,” Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said.
She added: “With footfall volumes being much greater in Central London than in cities elsewhere, a smaller increase in activity in the capital versus cities across the UK dampens growth in high street footfall in overall terms.”
The retail expert’s central London back to the office benchmark was in line with the central London footfall as a whole. Areas in office hubs, including the City of London, were three per cent busier last week, than the week prior.
However, across all retail destinations in the country, footfall was up 2.2 per cent on the week before.
“Footfall rose across all three destination types, however, the increases in all three were lower than the week before which followed payday, and which is often a driver of retail spending,” Wehrle added.